“Well, they die out, don’t they? There’s no need for them anymore. Old superstitions.”
“Really? You never wished on a shooting star? Never knocked on wood or thrown salt over your shoulder?” She leans on the counter. “Never got told stories about witches as a kid?”
“Fairy stories? Sure.”
Fern shakes her head. Her voice is soft, buttery almost. She looks at Sam and me with real intention, as though she is spelling something out.
“No, I mean real stories, about real witches. The kind with the black throats and tongues. The ones who creep into your house through all the cracks and crevices.”
“Not those stories, Fern, no.” I glance toward Sam to see what he is making of this, but his expression is closed, hands in his pockets.
“I can tell, else you wouldn’t be asking me about the hagstones. They’re protection, just like locking your door.”
I’m convinced she is teasing us, can imagine her laughing later about how gullible we are, how naïve. Fern keeps right on smiling that same, impish grin as Sam picks up a video box, turning it over in his hands.
“What kind of films were Alice and Vicky renting? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“Huh, let’s see.Dirty Dancing,that was a big one. Reckon they hired that about six times a month. Mostly fun stuff, you know?Teen Wolf, Cocktail.What I think of as bubblegum movies.”
“But no horror? NoExorcistorNightmare on Elm Street?”
“Well, I’m going to overlook what you’re insinuating about my ID checks on teenagers but no, at least not from me. That isn’t to say they haven’t seen it elsewhere, or got someone older than them to hire them out. That happens a lot.”
Sam nods. He puts the box back on the shelf.
“Okay. It was just a thought anyway. I need to find out what her influences are, I suppose.”
“Well you could do worse than speaking with her friends. If you can find any, that is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like I said, this time last year I’d see her and Vicky Matherson going everywhere together like conjoined twins. Then, nothing.”
I nod. The timeline fits with Vicky luring Alice to Tanner’sRow last winter. Alice said the two of them hadn’t spoken since. Sam looks at me and taps his watch, mouthing the word “curfew.” I nod and we say goodbye to Fern, who waves at us airily as we step outside. According to the map, Sam tells me as we cross the road, Tanner’s Row is just fifteen minutes away.
THIRTEEN
We walk along the High Street, up the hill and past the church. The heat makes it hard to speak and after a while we are comfortable with the silence. By the time we take the turning onto Tanner’s Row, the street sign eclipsed by a sharp tangle of nettles and bramble, the church bell is chiming out the hour. The cottages are a small row of six granite-built houses in varying stages of dilapidation. They are gloomy and dark bricked, addled with rot. Window frames buckle and swell and old iron drainpipes are streaked with rust. A skinny-looking cat watches us from one of the overgrown gardens, eyes narrowed. It has a mouse hanging from its mouth, pink tail still twitching, beads of blood on its whiskers.
“Which one is it, Mina?”
Sam’s voice is hushed in the still, heavy air.
“Alice said it’s the one on the end. Number six.”
I feel tension ratchet up my spine as we pick our way down the narrow lane spiked with weeds and cow parsley, long tongues of nettle.
We find Alice’s bike still leaning against the low stone wall of the last cottage along the row, just like she said it would be. I don’t know much about bikes but it occurs to me that even a cheap bike would be worth something to someone with nothing and wonder why she has never come back for it. Sam bends down to check the tires and looks up at me frowning. “They’re flat.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s been here about six months.”
We’re talking in big, exaggerated whispers and now we exchange a glance, laughing nervously. Sam holds out his hand toward the last cottage on the row and steps aside so I can enter. After you, no afteryou.We laugh again.
Alice was right aboutthe smell in here—it’s fetid, as though something is putrefying in the walls. A cloud of flies moves in drowsy circles in the hallway. Through the doorway I glimpse graffiti on the walls, a tide of litter swept into the corners. The ceiling bulges. The old sofa is askew, all the stuffing ripped out like dusty white entrails. Sam brushes up beside me as I hesitate on the threshold.
“You going in?” he whispers.
“Yes, I’m just—”